Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Before I get to into it, episode 15 (a Farwell to 6th) of "The Stuff of Legends" is up on iTunes and available for download, his episode Chuck Ian and I talk a bit about the new psychic table and some of the confirmed tidbits for 7th edition and league news in general. Hit up the links below and have a listen.

This one is a little late, but it's been a crazy busy/ productive last couple of days for me so I don't feel to broken up about it. Last Thursday found me in the good company of my cohorts Chuck and Ian, we gathered yet again for a night of beer, wieners and 40k (or in Chucks case 30k) It was another fantastic evening of hobby and entertainment, a few snapshots of which I have included below. This time there should be significant less dramatic glare.

Ian with his big manly man hands and puma scars cuts his first decal ever (was surprised to learn this) from a dark elder transfer sheet.

Remember this guy from last time? This is the final piece, I introduced Ian to "blood for the blood god" and I think it added a nice touch of slick gore to the final piece, over all a great scene.

Chucks resin graveyard of mechanicum bits, these guys (I don't remember exactly what he was working on) have an insane level of detail on every piece.

There was beer, and there was high powered lasers burning initials into various walls and pieces of furniture "lasers, like how do they work man, its like magic."

Oh wait, I actually got some stuff done to, if those sentinels look familiar its because they are the same ones I brought previously (the beer choice was particularly good that evening)

Ian finishing up the base on a wraithlord.

I did manage to get a fair bit done that night, mostly just getting a few stray projects done and ready for our upcoming apoc game.

Chuck and I are knight buddies now! He actually finished painting the thing a few days ago, un surprisingly he picked one of the mechanicum schemes.

Another great night spent hobbying with friends, a big thanks to Ian for hosting yet again, as always it was a fun experience. Lately these hobby nights have been getting pretty regular, so this week I am having chuck over to play a nice 1250 game, I'll do my best to get some good pics up of that since its going to be my last true game of 6th (not counting Apoc next Sunday)

Monday, May 12, 2014

Episode 14 of “The Stuff of Legends” gaming podcast is now
live, you can check us out oniTunes here, or grab the direct download here. This
we Chuck, Ian and I talk about 7th edition and the new rules (allegedly) regarding
unbound army lists and the new psychic tables and a little bit about rumors in
general, we also go over our hobby progress for the week, what’s going on at
the shop and the escalation league news. Give us a listen and if you like what
you hear, please let us know by rating us on iTunes and you can check out the gaming group on Facebook here.

Everything else:

Last Sunday was mother’s day, it was an understandably slow
day for gaming, but we had a few of the usual suspects show up and we kicked
off the first weekend of the bitz bazaar (we finally moved the pile off of Ian’s
bed) Unfortunately my camera bag has been temporarily lost in the warp (Ian’s
trunk) so this week’s escalation league pics will be a little light I did
however manage to grab a few quick pics of my first game of X-wing.

So on the last episode of TSoL I mentioned that I wanted to
try X-wing (made by Fantasy Flight) and Bill, one of our long time regulars
showed up with a massive set of toys and took the time to teach me how to play.

This won’t be a super long review, just my experience with
one game, and I should probably clarify I am not the biggest Star Wars fan.
That being said it was a fun game and I could see myself playing again,
everything about the game system is fairly straight forward, and they do a good
job of making all of the visual mechanics of the system fairly accessible and
very well laid out. What really got me was the movement system, getting to make
your movement choice in secret and running the risk of over shooting your
target, or flying straight into them and having to make a quick maneuver the
following turn to get out of the action, or turnabout and try and gun down your
opponents ship adds a certain level of depth to the game and helps make it feel
like you are actually maneuvering through a dogfight, rather than just playing
with static models on a 2d game board.

As I said before, I am not the biggest Star Wars fan, but
this is a game I could see myself picking up in the near future (the starter
sets only $40) It plays relatively quick and I can see why the system is catching
on at a lot of stores and conventions and this may be a bit of wishful
thinking, but I really wish FF would give Battle Fleet Gothic this treatment,
the mechanics are somewhat similar and if you scale up slightly it could be an
amazing re-launch of a great classic 40k game. That aside though, if you like
dogfights in space, or you like quick tabletop games that can be played on a
4x4 over a lunch break then check out x-wing, it’s not crazy expensive, it may
not be 40k, but it is pretty fun.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Thursday night found me in the company of long time co
conspirators Ian and Chuck, there was sausage (not pictured but delicious)
there was beer (pictured and also delicious) and there were bitz (pictured and
apparently delicious as well according to Ian) Below are some quick shots from
last nights hobby jam, sorry about the lighting but I require being back lit at
all times to accentuate my glowing visage, if you don’t buy that, it was a bit
dark in Ian’s office so we grabbed every table lamp in the house.

This Sunday Legends will be holding a bitz bazaar, come and trade your bits, build something fun out of your own bits box and show off your kit bashing skills. The bazaar opens at 11am but will probably run until close. You can get more info on Legends here.

Ian’s new nick name is lightning fingers, I swear I looked
away for like five minutes and when I looked back he had banged out this
awesome objective marker/diorama from his bed of bitz (which is now a table of
bitz) Chuck and I also gave a quick tutorial on bounce lighting and focus, and
I learned that there is indeed a minimum requirement hardware wise for taking
cellphone pics. Ian’s phone did not meet this requirement, and I was subsequently
humbled by my previous claims of skill using any device, in the end we just
used mine, but I learned Ian was gifted a Nokia 800 some time back, so he
should be seeing a marked increase in his photo quality shortly.

Ian rocking the brush on another storm trooper, I am still
kicking myself for forgetting to get a pic of his Tempestor in a Hawaiian shirt.

It’s easy to pick out the difference of technique between
Ian and I, its tight brush control and edging detail vs broad strokes and
blending, interesting contrast.

Chuck started base coating his new wraithguard, I have yet to
actually assemble mine, maybe next week.

Wraithguard awaiting wraithing.

Kahuna Yarrick makes a brief appearance along with a sack of
rogue trader rhinos (no literally, Ian had a sack full of them)

Not a shocker here, I managed to get the base coat on a few
more sentinels over the course of the evening, I love to say I got more done,
but I was distracted by ale and sausage and the occasional jokes of varying
degrees of taste.

We attempted to teach him to use tools and we are pleased to
announce that things are progressing well in our study.

The following are my attempts to salvage my reputation of
being a” guy who knows things about cameras” and who totally doesn’t forget
four years’ worth of photography courses and basic lighting after two (albeit
large) beers.

I would like to thank I an for inviting me out to his hobby bunker, and for a treating evening of plastic dolls and drinks (and turning me on to what is possibly the best sausage place in San Jose) Its mothers day this Sunday, so don't forget to put down your brushes and give it up for mom (sorry couldn't think of anything creative, brain running on fumes)

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Everyone seems to have their own two cents to put in on the
latest edition of the 40k rule set and with the confirmation of one aspect of
it I decided it was safe enough to take a stab at providing some perspective on
the matter.

To be clear, this is not a rant nor is it a speculative
piece I am simply providing some observations based on what we know (which is
still very little) about the new ‘unbound’ lists option. There has been a lot
of talk about percentages and side boards, but nothing has actually surfaced to
confirm either of those rumors, so I will only focus on unbound for the moment.

Apocalypse now?

Yes and at less than 2000 points, on demand whenever you
please. The initial heming and hawing about the prospect of your opponent being
able to field impossibly brutal lists was tempered by the fact that not
everyone is going to play unbound all day every day. Much like apocalypse, this
is just another aspect of the game that could allow for a greater range of
freedom when making a list, I have been using this example a lot lately but as
you may be aware I am the owner of a 26 sentinel strong army that has no
practical or competitive purpose other than to feed my varied and eccentric
tastes in this hobby. Previously there was no way in hell I could feasibly
squeeze more than six into a 1750 list, with 7th I could actually
field a decent and possibly balanced mobile infantry force (in theory anyways) I
have seen quite a bit of negativity towards this aspect of the new rule set,
but really this won’t change much day to day play, unbound is just another way
to work more models, or use the models you have in a game without having to
invest much or worry about making to perfect list. In that regard I think that
unbound also targets new and younger players who are not quite used to the math
hammer side of the game, or just want to play a game with “cool” models.

Unbound also solved another mystery that I had been
pondering on regarding supplements. For awhile a lot of people were wondering
why there has been such a deluge of extra army books as of late, my theory is
that this all falls in line with GW’s plans for 7th and the new list
building structure. Want to take an allied force? Double down on your profits
by releasing two books under one codex, Demons and CSM or CRS, IG and MT + INQ
and so on. Again this is just me postulating on why this may have been
structured as it is, I know GW is a publicly traded company, but not every
aspect of the rules is geared towards sales so there’s still a fair amount of
grey area with my theory.

Is this going to be a WAAC paradise, I don’t think so.
Echoing what a lot of the older community has been trying to drive home for the
last 20 years, it’s about talking to the guy/gal across the table and deciding
what and how you are going to play, I have walked away from plenty of games
because they just didn’t sound like fun and I don’t see why this would be an
issue everywhere else. At tournaments, at least for the first year anyways I
can see this as being doubly true, it sounds like GW has also introduced a
check and balance system to even things out, but with no further details I
really don’t care to delve too much into that area.

All in all I think its shapeing up to be a fun edition,
hopefully GW got over their Vista moment with 6th (sorry it was fun
but there were issues) and are back on track with 7th, are people
going to complain, yes, are people going to leave, yes. That’s fine if you don’t
enjoy the game anymore you certainly should find something else to play that
you do, but please don’t read a bunch of speculative articles on the internet
and declare that you’ll never play again before actually getting a few games
in, it makes us all look quite silly.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

On Friday May 2nd one of our players and long time friend of the shop Bill had his car broken into and his Battlefoam bag with his army stolen. Its always a terrible thing when it happens, all I can do is ask is for the community keep an eye out on ebay or Craigslist. As you can see below its a very visually unique army. This happened in the San Jose/Cupertino area.

Friday, May 2, 2014

This week has been quite the toasty one, despite my
workspace having an identical atmosphere to an easy bake oven I did manage to
get some hobby time in this week. As you can see by my highly advanced project
tracking system I finished all of D’s guard commissions for the month. With that out of the way I
have had more time to work on my sentinels I decided the best way to go on this
project was to break everything down into squads of three. Not counting basing
I have managed to clear six of them since Monday, after getting my jungle funge
layering system down its gotten a lot easier to crank these guys out, basing is
still going to be a bit of a chore, but as a whole they have been coming out
pretty consistently painted.

My army grows.

One of the first ones I did up out of the set.

I heard you like sentinels...

Aaannndddd more sentinels.

Random sniper, why not.

Oh yeah, did I mention I finally broke down and bought some
soft blue foam, and if I didn’t upgrade my kit soon I would have keep running
with my old set up (battle damaged army sabol bag filled with packing peanuts,
old large GW figure case) add to that I have been doing hobby demos and taking
pictures for the Escalation league over at Legends, I basically looked like a Sherpa
every time I went to the shop. So I decided I try there auto fill app for my
guard stuff and picked up a single case with no bag. Let me start by saying
there are plenty of reviews for KR floating around out there that go into great
detail about their product, this will not be one of those, as a matter of fact
“just plain awesome” pretty much sums up my experience with KR so far,
everything about this product is plain and functional with little extra
ornamentation or frill and I mean that in the most positive manner. I have seen
other more expensive options that simply add nothing more than extra flair and
decide its worth double the price, KR on the other hand doesn’t bother with
overly specialized options, they make a simple highly modular product that is
designed to fit your needs and there has yet to be an issue with my purchase
that really stands out as a negative, I do kind of wish they had a tray that
was half troop half heavy weapons squad ( as you can see above I found a work
around) but other than that everything seems well designed and optimized. You
can cram a lot into a single case and not just troops (though I hear you can
cram over 200 into a single hard case) I managed to get two troop choices
(about 60 pieces of infantry) plus armor and HQ’s into one case, and there was
no wiggle and no loose minis jangling around during transit.

I cut plugs in half so I could put more infantry in the empty slots.

For comparison here’s a few shots of the cores for my other
bags (SABOL and GW) GW’s foam comes closest, but it’s still a far cry from the
quality and softness of KR’s trays, GW’s trays are soft but much more dense and
springy, with a little give, KR by comparison is quite soft and malleable
almost plush to the touch with enough density to keep everything in place, but
also has enough give to make sure that piece that’s just a little too wide can
be made to fit without fear of damage.

Sabol sad to say represents the old school, pick n pluck was
the norm 7-8 years ago, but now feels quite dated (KR does offer pick n pluck
style trays, which do still have their uses) Compared with the more modern
purpose cut foam trays from companies like KR and Battlefoam this stuff just doesn’t
stack up. The foam itself has very little give and does not feel that far
removed from those little bits you used to get in the GW metal single packs.
Still though I use it for over flow and I will never get rid of my army carrier
bag (It has far too much character to throw out, and it doubles as a cooler) So
sadly I can no longer recommend them, or most of their product line, they do
still make a quality and consistant product, but there are better evenly
priced options out there now.

That’s it, for now anyways, I plan to get another batch of
sentinels done up tonight and maybe another sniper or medic, but for the most
part that’s all my hobby progress for this week. Before I sign off though, a
quick shout out for the stuff of legends podcast. This Sunday we will be
recording episode 13, we’ll be going over escalation news, some of the 6.1ed
stuff that’s been bubbling up lately, and I review my first issue of WD
visions. You can check out all the previous episodes of TSoL here.